In the Soul of a Nation Exhibit,  I came across so many great pieces of artwork from the Angela Davis and Malcolm X piece to the Wall of Respect mural. One of the pieces that crossed my eye was the “Blackboard” painting. The artist uses a variety of warm and cool colors from green and white to represent an actual blackboard to red and orange in the clothing of the two subjects in the middle. The lines are smooth and continuous. The artist used just the amount of scale to show both the writing and the subjects. In this painting, it seems as the two subjects are teacher and student. The painting reminds me of a  school setting. It could be Black History Month and for class the teacher is showing the student an alphabet acronym of African countries, African American pioneers, and words that come to mind when one thinks of black people and all that we’ve been through.

I chose this painting because we need more teachers teaching students about black history. Black people have endure so much for years and are still enduring a lot. I know that there are many educators and parents who teach their students/kids about black history and its culture. There are many people who are unaware of the many people who helped us as a race to come together with other races as a society. This painting relates to the rest of the exhibition because it has aspects that relates to black history. The painting showed names of those who helped us from education to living in society with one another (such as Dubois, Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Toussaint L’oeuvre, and more). This painting also had empowering words such as “victory, justice, freedom, black power…” which showed how far we’ve come as a race and as a community.